The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 32

1. Georgie Porgie, Puddin' Pie, Kissed a girl and made her cry!

2. Blue-eyed beauty, Do your mother's duty!

3. Black eye, pick a pie, Turn around and tell a lie!

4. n.i.g.g.e.r, n.i.g.g.e.r, never-die, Black face and shiny eye!

Interesting is the following scale of challenging, which Professor J. P.

Fruit reports from Kentucky (430. 229):--

"I dare you; I dog dare you; I double dog dare you.

I dare you; I black dog dare you; I double black dog dare you."

The language of the school-yard and street, in respect to challenges, fights, and contests of all sorts, has an atmosphere of its own, through which sometimes the most clear-sighted older heads find it difficult to penetrate.

The American Dialect Society is doing good work in hunting out and interpreting many of these contributions of childhood to the great mosaic of human speech, and it is to be hoped that in this effort they will have the co-operation of all the teachers of the country, for this branch of childish activity will bear careful and thorough investigation.

_Plant-Names._

In the names of some of the plants with which they early come into contact we meet with examples of the ingenuity of children. In Mrs.

Bergen's (400) list of popular American plant-names are included some which come from this source, for example: "frog-plant (_Sedum Telephium_)," from the children's custom of "blowing up a leaf so as to make the epidermis puff up like a frog"; "drunkards (_Gaulteria proc.u.mbens_)," because "believed by children to intoxicate"; "bread-and-b.u.t.ter (_Smilax rotundifolia_)," because "the young leaves are eaten by children"; "velvets (_Viola pedata_)," a corruption of the "velvet violets" of their elders; "splinter-weed (_Antennaria plantaginifolia_)," from "the appearance of the heads"; "ducks (_Cypripedium_)," because "when the flower is partly filled with sand and set afloat on water, it looks like a duck"; "pearl-gra.s.s (_Glyceria Canadensis_)," a name given at Waverley, Ma.s.sachusetts, "by a few children, some years ago." This list might easily be extended, but sufficient examples have been given to indicate the extent to which the child's mind has been at work in this field.

Moreover, many of the names now used by the older members of the community, may have been coined originally by children and then adopted by the others, and the same origin must probably be sought out for not a few of the folk-etymologies and word-distortions which have so puzzled the philologists.

"_Physonyms_."

In an interesting paper on "physonyms,"--_i.e._ "words to which their signification is imparted by certain physiological processes, common to the race everywhere, and leading to the creation of the same signs with the same meaning in totally sundered linguistic stocks"--occurs the following pa.s.sage (193. cx.x.xiii.):--

"One of the best known and simplest examples is that of the widespread designation of 'mother' by such words as _mama_, _nana_, _ana_; and of 'father' by such as _papa_, _baba_, _tata_. Its true explanation has been found to be that, in the infant's first attempt to utter articulate sounds, the consonants _m_, _p_, and _t_ decidedly preponderate; and the natural vowel _a_, a.s.sociated with these, yields the child's first syllables. It repeats such sounds as _ma-ma-ma_ or _pa-pa-pa_, without attaching any meaning to them; the parents apply these sounds to themselves, and thus impart to them their signification."

Other physonyms are words of direction and indication of which the radical is _k_ or _g_; the personal p.r.o.nouns radical in _n_, _m_ (first person), _k, t, d_ (second person); and demonstratives and locatives whose radical is _s_. The frequency of these sounds in the language of children is pointed out also by Tracy in his monograph on the psychology of childhood. In the formation and fixation of the onomatopes with which many languages abound some share must be allotted to the child. A recent praiseworthy study of onomatopes in the j.a.panese language has been made by Mr. Aston, who defines an onomatope as "the artistic representation of an inarticulate sound or noise by means of an articulate sound" (394. 333). The author is of opinion that from the a.n.a.logy of the lower animals the inference is to be drawn that "mankind occupied themselves for a long time with their own natural cries before taking the trouble to imitate for purposes of expression sounds not of their own making" (394. 334). The latter process was gradual and extended over centuries. For the child or the "child-man" to imitate the cry of the c.o.c.k so successfully was an inspiration; Mr. Aston tells us that "the formation of a word like _c.o.c.k-a-doodle-do_, is as much a work of individual genius as Hamlet or the Laoc.o.o.n" (394. 335). Of certain modern aspects of onomatop?ia the author observes: "There is a kindred art, viz. that of the _exact_ imitation of animal cries and other sounds, successfully practised by some of our undergraduates and other young people, as well as by tame ravens and parrots. It probably played some part in the development of language, but I can only mention it here"

(394. 333).

_College Yells._

The "college yells" of the United States and Canada offer an inviting field for study in linguistic atavism and barbaric vocal expression. The _New York World Almanac_ for 1895 contains a list of the "yells" of some three hundred colleges and universities in the United States. Out of this great number, in which there is a plenitude of "Rah! rah! rah!"

the following are especially noteworthy:--

_Benzonia:_ Kala, kala, kala! Sst, Boom, Gah! Benzo, Benzon-iah!

Whooo!

_Buchtel:_ Ye-ho! Ye-hesa! Hisa! Wow wow! Buchtel!

_Dartmouth:_ Wah, who, wah! wah who wah! da-da-da, Dartmouth! wah who wah! T-i-g-e-r!

_Heidelberg:_ Killi-killick! Rah, rah, Zik, zik! Ha! Ha! Yi! Hoo!

Baru! Zoo! Heidelberg!

The "yell" of _Ohio Wesleyan University_, "O-wee-wi-wow!

Ala-ka-zu-ki-zow! Ra-zi-zi-zow! Viva! Viva! O. W. U.!" is enough to make the good man for whom the inst.i.tution is named turn uneasily in his grave. The palm must, however, be awarded to the _University of North Dakota_, whose remarkable "yell" is this: "Odz-dzo-dzi! Ri-ri-ri!

Hy-ah! Hy-ah! North Dakota! and Sioux War-Cry." Hardly have the ancestors of Sitting Bull and his people suspected the immortality that awaited their ancient slogan. It is curious that the only "yell" set to proper music is that of the girls of _Wellesley College_, who sing their cheer, "Tra la la la, Tra la la la, Tra la la la la la la, W-E-L-L-E-S-L-E-Y, Welles-ley."

As is the case with other practices in collegiate life, these "yells"

seem to be making their way down into the high and grammar schools, as well as into the private secondary schools, the popularity and excitement of field-sports and games, baseball, foot-ball, etc., giving occasion enough for their frequent employment.

Here fall also the spontaneous shouts and cries of children at work and at play, the _Ki-yah!_ and others of a like nature whose number is almost infinite.

Mr. Charles Ledyard Norton, in his _Political Americanisms_ (New York, 1890), informs us that "the peculiar staccato cheer, 'rah, rah, rah!'" was probably invented at Harvard in 1864. In the Blaine campaign of 1884 it was introduced into political meetings and processions together with "the custom, also borrowed from the colleges, of spelling some temporarily significant catch-word in unison, as, for instance, 'S-o-a-p!' the separate letters being p.r.o.nounced in perfect time by several hundred voices at once." The same authority thinks that the idea of calling out "Blaine--Blaine--James G. Blaine!" in cadenced measure after the manner of the drill-sergeants, "Left--left--left--right--left!" an idea which had many imitations and elaborations among the members of both the great political parties, can be traced back to the Columbia College students (p. 120).

_The Child as an Innovator in Language._

But the role of the child in the development of language is concerned with other things than physonyms and onomatopes. In his work on Brazilian ethnography and philology, Dr. von Martius writes (522. 43): "A language is often confined to a few individuals connected by relationship, forming thus, as it were, _a family inst.i.tute_, which isolates those who use it from all neighbouring or distant tribes so completely that an understanding becomes impossible." This intimate connection of language with the family, this preservation and growth of language, as a family inst.i.tution, has, as Dr. von Martius points out, an interesting result (522. 44):--

"The Brazilians frequently live in small detachments, being kept apart by the chase; sometimes only a few families wander together; often it is one family alone. Within the family the language suffers a constant remodelling. One of the children will fail to catch precisely the radical sound of a word; and the weak parents, instead of accustoming it to p.r.o.nounce the word correctly, will yield, perhaps, themselves, and adopt the language of the child. We often were accompanied by persons of the same band; yet we noticed in each of them slight differences in accentuation and change of sound. His comrades, however, understood him, and they were understood by him. As a consequence, their language never can become stationary, but will constantly break off into new dialects."

Upon these words of von Martius (reported by Dr. Oscar Peschel), Dr.

Charles Rau comments as follows (522. 44): "Thus it would seem that, among savages, _children_ are to a great extent the originators of idiomatic diversities. Dr. Peschel places particular stress on this circ.u.mstance, and alludes to the habit of over-indulgent parents among refined nations of conforming to the humours of their children by conversing with them in a kind of infantine language, until they are several years old. Afterward, of course, the rules of civilized life compel these children to adopt the proper language; but no such necessity exists among a hunter family in the primeval forests of South America; here the deviating form of speech remains, and the foundation of a new dialect is laid."

_Children's Languages._

But little attention has been paid to the study of the language of children among primitive people. In connection with a brief investigation of child-words in the aboriginal tongues of America, Mr.

Horatio Hale communicated to the present writer the following observation of M. l'Abbe Cuoq, of Montreal, the distinguished missionary and linguist: "As far as the Iroquois in particular are concerned, it is certain that this language [langage enfantin] is current in every family, and that the child's relatives, especially the mothers, teach it to their children, and that the latter consequently merely repeat the words of which it is composed" (201. 322). That these "child-words" were invented by children, the Abbe does not seem to hint.

The prominence of the mother-influence in the child's linguistic development is also accentuated by Professor Mason, who devotes a chapter of his recent work on woman's part in the origin and growth of civilization to woman as a linguist. The author points out how "women have helped to the selection and preservation of language through onomatopoeia," their vocal apparatus being "singularly adapted to the imitation of many natural sounds," and their ears "quick to catch the sounds within the compa.s.s of the voice" (113. 188-204). To the female child, then, we owe a good deal of that which is now embodied in our modern speech, and the debt of primitive races is still greater. Many a traveller has found, indeed, a child the best available source of linguistic information, when the idling warriors in their pride, and the hard-working women in their shyness, or taboo-caused fear, failed to respond at all to his requests for talk or song.

Canon Farrar, in his _Chapters on Language_, makes the statement: "It is a well-known fact that the neglected children, in some of the Canadian and Indian villages, who are left alone for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort of _lingua franca_, partially or wholly unintelligible to all except themselves" (200. 237). Mr. W. W.

Newell speaks of the linguistic inventiveness of children in these terms (313. 24):--

"As infancy begins to speak by the free though unconscious combination of linguistic elements, so childhood retains in language a measure of freedom. A little attention to the jargons invented by children might have been serviceable to certain philologists. Their love of originality finds the tongue of their elders too commonplace; besides, their fondness for mystery requires secret ways of communication. They, therefore, often create (so to speak) new languages, which are formed by changes in the mother-speech, but sometimes have quite complicated laws of structure and a considerable arbitrary element." The author cites examples of the "Hog Latin" of New England schoolchildren, in the elaboration of which much youthful ingenuity is expended. Most interesting is the brief account of the "cat" language:--

"A group of children near Boston invented the _cat language_, so called because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions for _lion_. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending _-ly_ was always _-osh; terribly, terriblosh_. A certain percentage of words were absolutely independent, or at least of obscure origin. The grammar tended to Chinese or infantine simplicity; _ta_ represented any case of any personal p.r.o.noun. A proper name might vary in sound according to the euphonic requirements of the different Christian names by which it was preceded. There were two dialects, one, however, stigmatized as _provincial_. This invention of language must be very common, since other cases have fallen under our notice in which children have composed dictionaries of such" (313. 25).

This characterization of child-speech offers not a few points of contact with primitive languages, and might indeed almost have been written of one of them.

More recently Colonel Higginson (262) has given some details of "a language formed for their own amus.e.m.e.nt by two girls of thirteen or thereabouts, both the children of eminent scientific men, and both unusually active-minded and observant." This dialect "is in the most vivid sense a living language," and the inventors, who keep pruning and improving it, possess a ma.n.u.script dictionary of some two hundred words, which, it is to be hoped, will some day be published. An example or two from those given by Colonel Higginson will serve to indicate the general character of the vocabulary:--

_bojiwa.s.sis_, "the feeling you have just before you jump, don't you know--when you mean to jump and want to do it, and are just a little bit afraid to do it."

_spygri_, "the way you feel when you have just jumped and are awfully proud of it."

_pippadolify_, "stiff and starched like the young officers at Washington."

Other information respecting this "home-made dialect," with its revising academy of children and its standard dictionary, must be sought in the entertaining pages of Colonel Higginson, who justly says of this triumph of child-invention: "It coins thought into syllables, and one can see that, if a group of children like these were taken and isolated until they grew up, they would forget in time which words were their own and which were in Worcester's Dictionary; and _stowish_ and _krono_ and _bojiwa.s.sis_ would gradually become permanent forms of speech" (262. 108).

In his valuable essay on _The Origin of Languages_ (249), Mr.

Horatio Hale discusses a number of cases of invention of languages by children, giving interesting, though (owing to the neglect of the observers) not very extensive, details of each.